by Howie Carr
I stood up and walked around the table to kiss Ma on the cheek. Her breath smelled of garlic and cheap wine. God, what a madhouse.
“Remember, Ma, get that cash outta here, or he’ll grab it for sure.”
“I know, Bench,” she said, nodding her head. “Nona this would have happened if Ricky was still around. I don’t know how many times I tell him, Ricky, no more stickups. Cops now, they got too many cameras, radios, red-dye packs. Stick to the drugs, I says. Find some spics-a sell it for you. God knows we got enough of ’em around here now.” She waved her arm in dismissal. “You was always smarter than him, Bench.”
I said my good-byes and made for the door. I was out on the sidewalk when my cell phone rang.
30
… AND YE SHALL RECEIVE
Bench had given me the number of one of those cell phones with an area code you never heard of. He probably changed phones every couple of days. That way by the time any cops could get a warrant to listen in, the phone would be gone. So I called the cell phone du jour.
“Yeah?” he said.
“You know that party we saw over in Ward One last night?”
“Ward One?” he said, obviously puzzled. Sometimes I forget, not everyone is into city politics the way I am.
“Eastie,” I said, and he said “Yeah” again. Bench McCarthy, I had come to understand, was a man of few words.
“I got a plan, but I’m going to need some help.”
“So why you callin’ me?”
“I mean, we’re after the same thing here, aren’t we?”
“Are we?”
This was going nowhere fast. He wasn’t going to say anything over the phone. Maybe he wasn’t going to say anything, period, but I had to try.
“How about we meet somewhere?”
“How about we run into each other somewhere?”
“Please, this could pay off for you too.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“Look, I’m coming over to the Alibi. Okay?”
“It’s a free country,” he said.
A half hour later, I was sitting at the bar, watching a guy behind the tap that everyone in the joint called Hobart. Bench McCarthy wandered in about fifteen minutes later, walked over to Hobart, whispered something in his ear, and then motioned for me to follow him into the back of the bar. We sat down in the back booth.
“Okay,” he said without much interest, “what’s going on?”
“The senator has a booth in B.B. Bennigan’s—”
“—On Tremont Street?”
“Yep, right down from the State House. He doesn’t hang at the Twenty-First Amendment—”
“—Can’t say as I blame him. I was in there once, had to pick something up. I never seen so many front-runners and ass–kissers in one place.”
I wondered what he had to pick up. Funny, on the phone getting a word out of him was like pulling teeth. Now I couldn’t finish a sentence.
“Anyway, I can drop a bug in the booth, that’s no problem—”
“—So you’re not going to try to put a wire in the Python?” He had a slight smirk on his face.
“Listen, I want to try it this afternoon, I don’t have much time here. I need someone in that booth in front of Donuts’. So the bartender can’t see me.”
“And you don’t have anyone else who can help you out except me?”
“I usually work alone,” I said.
“I guess the fuck you do, if you have to come to me.” He paused and thought for a second. “Can this second person, could it be a broad? A good-looking broad? A young, good-looking broad?”
“That would actually be perfect,” I said. “You got somebody in mind?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Her name’s Patty Lamonica.”
31
BAITING THE TRAP
Like Sally says, it’s not easy. Not with Patty, anyway. I called her at my lawyer’s office where she “works” and told her to get down to the Alibi. I explained to Patty what I needed from her, and you would have thought I had asked her to start turning two-dollar tricks in Grove Hall.
“You want me to sit in a fucking booth in some old-fart dump on Tremont Street with a ‘private eye,’” she said. “I’ve never even seen a private eye, except on TV.”
“Lotta things you never seen except on TV, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Besides, I never knew you not to like sitting in some bar pounding down the Hoodsies on the arm.”
That much was true. She usually wouldn’t drink anything without a little umbrella in it. And I don’t think she’d ever drunk anything except on the arm. I’d told her to dress “for me,” and at least she followed those instructions. She was a born cockteaser. Patty looked like one of those teachers that’re always getting fired when somebody drops a dime to the school superintendent that they used to be in movies with titles like “Big Sausage Pizza.” She sashayed into the Alibi wearing her usual short, short skirt and porn-star pumps. And around her neck, of course, a necklace featuring a cross. Who doesn’t appreciate that de rigueur fashion accessory, the crucifix? Nothing says “devout” like a twenty-four-carat gold cross dangling down around your cleavage.
“You look great, babe,” I said.
“Damn right I do. And flattery will get you nowhere.”
The Alibi is always dark, even at mid-afternoon, but Reilly’s eyes widened as he took in Patty—a good sign. The only possible problem would be if the bartender were gay, a not unimaginable scenario nowadays around here.
I couldn’t remember if they’d been introduced on the night of the shooting, so I went through the formalities again, after which he got right down to business.
“So Patty,” he said, “did Bench explain—”
“I wanna change the plans around a little,” I interrupted. “I want to plant it. I just bought some new gear I want to test out. Maybe you didn’t know, I’m a master electrician.”
“You are?” he said.
“Yeah, when I was in Lewisburg, I figured I might as well learn a trade.”
Better than taking some bullshit creative-writing classes from some chump from WBUR who was trying to save the world from George Bush. Came in handy too, a few years later, when we were hunting down Beezo Watson and the Townies. They were very careless on the phone.
Jack Reilly was trying to remember something. “Didn’t I read something about you, during the gang war?”
“Don’t believe nothing you read in the papers, Jack. But the fact is, I do keep up with the technology. I’m a jack-of-all-trades you might say. Let me handle it.”
“Who’s gonna sit on it?”
“That’s your thing, Jack, I’m not big-footing you on that. Just let me put it in, I’d feel better if I did it. You can sit with Patty in the crash booth.”
He smiled. Reilly liked the phrase “crash booth.” Then he checked out Patty again.
“You think you can keep the bartender interested?” Reilly asked her.
“If he’s got a pulse I can.”
I’d brought my kit with me downstairs from the office. I grabbed it off the floor and put it up on the table. It was the signal to leave.
“What’s the range on your gear?” Reilly asked.
“About two hundred yards.”
His eyebrows went up. “Wow, that must have set you back a little.” He glanced back at Patty; he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. It was lust at first sight. Patty instinctively knew he was checking her out, yet she still looked bored. He was just another jerk-off twenty-plus years older than she was, which was bad enough, but even worse, he didn’t look like he had a lot of dough. Jack of course knew where he stood. He was just taking in the scenery. It was like a free trip to the Super Bowl.
“C’mon,” I said. “We’ll put the receiver in your car. You’re a cop, you find a parking space down there in one of those alleys off Winter Street. You and Patty drive down there together, get settled in the crash booth, and I’ll come in about five minutes behind you. I’ll
sit in the last booth, the one behind you—that’s the one, right?”
I turned to Patty. “And Patty, Jack is the boss. No lip. Just follow instructions.”
She looked over at him with disdain, and I felt sorry for Reilly, because I was afraid he was going to have to deny that he had been checking her out. Instead, she just said, “I hope this is worth it.”
“Oh yeah,” said Jack Reilly, “it will be.”
32
MONKEY BUSINESS
It was about a fifteen-minute drive into the city. Patty wasn’t exactly a sparkling conversationalist, and she smoked like it was still 1975. She didn’t even bother to roll down the window. I found a spot in a fire lane in one of the alleys near what used to be Locke-Ober. I leaned across the front seat to the glove compartment to grab my ancient Official Boston Police Business placard and managed to brush her knee first with my hand and then with the placard.
“Watch it buster or I’ll tell Bench,” she said.
As we walked into B.B. Bennigan’s every head turned to the door. Fortunately, there were only about three of them, and they were all sitting at the bar. Even more fortuitously, one of the heads that turned belonged to the bartender. Which meant he was straight. I led her to the booth and motioned her to the side where we could see the front door, and the bartender. Then I slid in beside her. She hit me with a withering glance.
“Keep your hands to yourself,” she said.
The bartender was about thirty, looked like a Suffolk Law student-type, just as I had expected, the kind with a no-show job at the State House, second or third generation hack from Milton by way of Dorchester. Someday he’d be a clerk/magistrate, begging cases right and left. He sauntered over, his eyes lingering on Patty’s legs. Patty ordered a Long Island iced tea, I went for a beer, bottled. They didn’t have anything on draft; it was that kind of place.
The bartender brought the drinks and, having nothing else to do, stuck around to check out Patty some more.
“You two new around here?” he asked.
“Buzz off, Junior,” she said. He was mildly taken aback.
“That’s no way to treat somebody who didn’t card you,” he said.
She reached for her purse, which was between us, and her hand brushed up against my thigh and lingered maybe a second too long. I hoped Bench got here fast.
The bartender waved her off. “Don’t bother,” he said.
“She didn’t mean anything by it,” I said.
“Who asked you?” she said, and then looked over at me and smirked. Now I was in on her jokes. Bench apparently hadn’t impressed upon her that this was business, monkey business perhaps, but business nonetheless. The bartender, confused, wandered back to the bar. I’d wanted him to be our friend, but it was too late for that now.
“Leave him alone from now on, okay?” I said, as the front door opened and I saw Bench stroll casually in. He was wearing a dirty old white Red Sox hat, a windbreaker and carrying a medium-sized Macy’s bag. He looked like a workingman on a very late lunch hour. He stopped off at the bar, spoke to the bartender and motioned in the direction of the booths. The bartender nodded, and Bench slowly made his way back toward Donahue’s booth, nodding casually at us. He put down his shopping bag and then pushed it back to the wall. Then he sat down heavily in the booth, facing out to the door, and then the bartender was walking towards him, shaking his head.
“This booth’s kind of reserved,” he told Bench.
“I didn’t see a sign,” Bench said.
“No sign,” the bartender admitted. “It’s just…” He turned around to check out the clock behind the bar. “Look, this booth, there’s one of my regulars who comes in, usually just after five. It’s four-thirty now, as long as you just have one drink, it’s okay, but then you gotta find another place to sit, and if he comes in early, you gotta move. That okay?”
“Sure,” I heard Bench say. “I appreciate it.” I wondered if he’d duked the kid a sawbuck, or maybe a twenty, then decided no. That would have set off alarm bells. Then I heard him order a Bud Light. He was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, and he was doing a pretty good job of it. In his line of work, it paid not to stick out.
Then the bartender noticed us.
“You guys will have to move too when this party arrives,” he said. No “sorry” for us; Patty had taken care of that.
The bartender returned a minute or so later with Bench’s beer and went back to the front. He was taking care of his handful of customers, but I didn’t like the way he kept glancing back our way.
I pulled out a twenty and handed it to Patty and told her to go get us another round.
“Why don’t we just wave to him and get him over here?”
“Because your boyfriend doesn’t want him seeing what he’s doing?”
“I don’t need another drink,” she said.
I leaned over, picked up her Long Island iced tea, two-thirds full, and drained it in one gulp. I almost immediately felt a warm glow inside from the five or six shots of booze.
“Wow,” she said. “You got a problem?”
“No, but your boyfriend does if the bartender sees what he’s doing back there. Come on, shake a leg.” I stood up to let her out of the booth. She moved slowly, languidly, but I was no longer fantasizing about her in the sack. I just wanted to get this over with. I glanced back at Bench, both his hands under the table. I’m sure he was wearing gloves, so he had to make sure no one noticed. When Bench saw me looking back at him, he smiled and nodded. He was good. It looked like he already had the bug attached underneath the table and was just trying to find a way to attach the microphone to the wall so that it wouldn’t be seen.
“Five more minutes,” he silently mouthed.
I watched Patty leaning over the bar and suddenly I was checking her out again, just like everybody else at the bar. I didn’t realize they made dresses that short anymore, or ever, for that matter. She and the bartender seemed to have patched things up. They were enjoying a good chuckle together now. I had a feeling this next Long Island iced tea was going to be even stronger.
As I watched them flirting, the door opened once more. It was still a little early for Donahue, but what I saw was even worse than Donuts. It was Katy Bemis, with a chinless, emaciated fop in cuffed trousers and wingtips and wearing a bow tie—a Globe colleague, obviously.
She spotted me, smiled and waved, and began walking back to the booth, right past Patty. I had a funny feeling I wouldn’t be feeling funny very long. She walked right up to me, Ichabod Crane lingering behind, and kissed me on the cheek.
“Jack,” she said, “what are you doing here? Can we sit with you? This is my editor, Alexander Chauncey Giles.”
He stuck out a cold dead fish of a hand and said, “Call me Sandy.”
“Of course,” I said. They always call themselves Sandy, those Alexanders. I smiled. “I’ll bet you like balsamic vinaigrette on your arugula, am I right, Chaunce?”
His smile was as weak as his handshake. “Right-o! How did you guess, old chap?”
Sometimes you can see disaster thundering down on you, but there’s nothing you can do to save yourself. This was one of those moments. Katy was waiting for me to invite her and Sandy to sit down, but I was watching Patty shaking her ass at the barflies on her way back to the booth, her drink in one hand, my beer in the other. Katy couldn’t see her, but she noticed my eyes drifting off and then she turned around. She said nothing, but if looks could kill …
“Hey, Jack,” Patty said, putting the drinks down on the table. “Who’s the old bag?”
Katy’s jaw dropped. Sandy seemed utterly befuddled. I had a feeling this was his natural condition. I was a little thrown off myself; she’d said no more than ten words to me all the way over from Winter Hill, and now she was trying to start a catfight. And she wasn’t drunk either. I’d guzzled most of her first Long Island iced tea. I glanced back at Bench, his two arms still underneath the table, but he had a faint smile on his face. This w
as apparently a variation on an act he was quite familiar with. Patty slid past me into the booth.
“Jack,” said Katy, with ice in her voice, “why don’t you introduce us to your new friend?”
“Oh sure,” I said, “Patty, this is Katy and Sandy.”
“Pleased to meetcha,” she said, putting on a heavy Somerville accent. I was still standing, facing Katy, when Patty grabbed me by the arm. “C’mon, Jackie, sit down with your Patty and have a drinkie-poo.”
“By all means, Jack,” said Katy, “sit down and have a drinkie-poo.”
“Look, Katy, Patty’s just putting you on here.” I pulled myself loose of her arm and took a step toward Katy. That, I immediately realized, was a mistake. She swung her pocketbook directly at my head and the metal clasp hit me square on the left side of my cheek. It hurt, and I knew it would leave a welt, in just about the same place as the one she’d laid on me at the Eastern Standard.
“Please, Katy,” I said, and this time she kicked me in the shin. Just my luck she was wearing boots—pointed boots. My eyes widened in pain, but what could I do?
Now the bartender was walking rapidly toward us.
Suddenly I felt someone brush by me. It was Bench, bag in hand, smirk on his face. I’d done my job perfectly, and so had Patty. The difference was, Patty had known what she was doing, and I hadn’t.
The bartender walked directly to Katy. “Is this creep bothering you, ma’am?” he said, directing a dirty look in my direction.
“Not any more he isn’t,” she said, turning on her heel and walking out, Alexander Chauncey “Sandy” Giles following meekly behind her. The bartender gave me a withering look.
“I knew you were trouble from the start,” he said. “I want the two of you out of here—now.”
“Gladly,” I said. Now I was the one grabbing Patty by the arm. She got up and as she walked by the bartender toward the door she snarled, “You didn’t put any Triple Sec in that last Long Island iced tea, motherfucker.”
33